1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns the mimicking of legacy network devices to extend the functional capabilities of the legacy network devices. Specifically, the invention is used to represent one or more legacy network devices by isolating the legacy network devices from the external network and by transparently acting on behalf of the legacy network devices for function requests which they do not inherently support.
2. Description of the Related Art
Large network environments, such as a network for supporting a business office environment, often contain many network devices, such as network printers, of different types and generations having different functional capabilities. As new technologies emerge and improved functionality is implemented in new models or generations of network devices, the functions available within a network can vary greatly depending on which network device is being utilized. For example, some newer printers in the network environment may support secure printing while the older printers in the network environment do not support secure printing.
It is generally desirable to implement new technologies and improvements across an entire network environment, thereby making the same set of functional capabilities available to all network users for all network devices. Otherwise, some network users may be excluded from taking advantage of new beneficial capabilities, such as secure printing and e-mail printing, if their assigned network device does not support the new functionality supported by other newer network devices.
One solution to this problem is to simply replace all legacy network devices with new network devices having the desired new functional capabilities. The effort and expense involved in undertaking this solution is great, and is impracticable when new enterprise applications requiring new functional capabilities are implemented on a frequent basis.
Alternatively, another solution to this problem is to modify the legacy network devices by downloading new firmware to each legacy network device. However, this solution also requires significant effort by a network administrator or service person to physically access each legacy network device and then download an appropriate version of firmware to make the legacy device support functionality consistent with other network devices. In many cases, it is not possible to download a new version of firmware to the legacy device for implementation of a new function because of hardware and design limitations of the legacy device.
Yet another solution to the problem is to place a support device on the network near each legacy network device for supporting the desired additional functionality for the corresponding legacy network device. This solution has the drawback of not being transparent to users of the legacy network devices, thereby requiring network users to be aware of the IP address for the support device corresponding to a given legacy network device in order to utilize the additional functionality provided by the support device.